Ever since Capcom confirmed the worst kept secret in Resident Evil fandom to be true - that Leon Kennedy is in fact one of the heroes of Resident Evil Requiem - the studio has really been emphasizing how much gameplay variety is opened up by having dual protagonists. Grace is the timid, anxious, newcomer while Leon is the battletested hot uncle who's perhaps become a little too cozy with his new ax.
In a new interview with the PlayStation Blog, director Koshi Nakanishi revealed yet another layer of depth that wouldn't have been possible without two playable characters: enemies and items that persist when you switch between playing as Leon and Grace. According to Nakanishi, this adds a new level of replayability.
"If you switch from Grace to Leon in the same location, any enemies Grace took down stay dead for Leon, and the same goes for items on the ground," Nakanishi said. "However, it’s tough for Grace – who’s always short on ammo – to wipe out all the enemies. Using Leon to take down enemies that Grace fled from is one of this game’s highlights."
As a self-proclaimed scaredy cat myself, I'm excited about this for a whole different reason. I'm a massive Resident Evil fan, but there are moments in the series that have tested the limits of what I can handle, most notably the first half of Resident Evil 7, which Nakanishi himself directed. The fact that I'll be able to nope out of some combat encounters with Grace and take them on as the more physically confident Leon is genuinely assuring.
And sure, I'm also intrigued by what sounds like a strategy of adequately equipping both Leon and Grace and balancing the combat load so that you're not needlessly overloading or underloading either one.
"The more you play, the more you discover how actions in one part affect the other, so it creates a different kind of replay value compared to previous games in the series," added Nakanishi.
